The present invention concerns tools and methods for enhancing fund raising efforts. More specifically, the invention relates to commemorative book replicas honoring charitable donors.
Public and private organizations are continually searching for ways to raise money for various projects. Municipal entities, such as public libraries, are particularly in need of charitable contributions from the general public. Organizations of that type usually do not meet their funding requirements from government grants or user""s fees. Thus, most public libraries have turned to a variety of fund raising approaches to generate monies for acquiring new books, renovating existing facilities, and even larger capital campaigns.
Naturally, any fund raising campaign relies upon the charitable feelings of its potential donors. Unfortunately, the charitable spirit alone is not always enough to inspire an individual or corporation to make such a contribution. For many years, colleges and universities have been able to rely upon a desire for personal recognition to obtain substantial monetary grants. There is scarcely a university around that does not have a library, dormitory or academic building bearing the name of a past high-dollar donor. In recent years, this approach has been used to finance capital development for public improvements for sports stadiums, theatres and the like.
Unfortunately, most municipal organizations, such as public libraries, do not have the same drawing power that a university or public stadium might have to receive large monetary donations. As a consequence, most fund raising efforts for libraries rely upon medium or small contributions from smaller companies and individuals. A typical capital contribution campaign may depend upon donations from up to a thousand individuals and companies.
With current fund-raising approaches, it has been nearly impossible for municipal organizations and libraries to rely upon the personal recognition aspect of charitable giving to inspire contributions from the general public. One common, yet unsatisfactory, approach has been to simply list the names of donors on a single plaque. While this approach does provide some measure of recognition to the private giver, donor plaques tend to have low visibility and certainly provide no measure of individuality for each donor.
Throughout the years, the sources of the funding for libraries and other similar municipal organizations have been extremely variable. As governments respond to the taxation concerns of its constituents, less and less government money is being made available to assist these types of organizations. Thus, libraries and their counterparts must always rely heavily on the private sector to fund its acquisition and development projects.
As the economy changes, so to does the giving spirit of the public. Consequently, there is always a need for systems and methods to further inspire the general and business public to make donations.
In order to address this need, the present invention provides an inexpensive yet, highly visible, system and method for providing recognition to individuals and companies making donations. The present invention is best suited for donations to public and private libraries, although the same principals can be applied with equal effect in other organizations seeking public donations.
In one aspect of the invention, commemorative book tiles are provided that are configured to have the appearance of a book spine. The name of the individual or corporate donor is prominently displayed on the book spine. In addition, the spine can include other indicia concerning the donation, such as the year, the status or level of the donation, the donee organization and the like.
In one aspect of the invention, the book tiles are formed of ceramic with only a moderate thickness. The tiles can employ various representations of book spines, having varying heights and thickness dimensions. The character of the tiles can be adjusted to the individual tastes of the donors or donee.
In addition to the commemorative book tiles, the invention contemplates a frame within which the tiles are supported. In one preferred embodiment, the frame can be a representation of one or more shelves of a bookshelf. Like the commemorative book tiles, the frame itself also has a moderate thickness; it need not have the dimensions of a typical bookshelf because it is only housing replicas of the spines of books, rather than the books themselves. Most preferably, the frame is sized to be mounted on a wall of the donee organization.
In one feature, individual frames housing a single row of book tiles can be provided. This single row frame can either be wall mounted, or in a further embodiment can be configured to rest within the shelves of a typical bookshelf. In this latter instance, the commemorative book tiles can be intermingled with actual library books to further enhance the visibility of the donor recognition book tiles.
It is one object of the present invention to provide a system and method for encouraging individuals and companies to make donations. It is a further object to provide a system to prominently recognize these donations.
One benefit of the invention is that it provides a unique and highly visible medium for recognizing donors. Another benefit is that the invention can be readily integrated into the surroundings
or dxc3xa9cor of the particular donee organization.